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Tree love in the air; allergic, beware

Pleasantly warm and dry, with a light breeze ideal for flying, Monday was a fabulous day to be a pollen grain. And a terrible one to be an allergy sufferer.

Pleasantly warm and dry, with a light breeze ideal for flying, Monday was a fabulous day to be a pollen grain. And a terrible one to be an allergy sufferer.

The peak season for tree-pollen levels has arrived, and on Monday pollen counts registered in the "extreme" category, with an attendant outbreak of sneezing, congestion, watery eyes, coughing, and assorted complaints, according to Donald J. Dvorin, the region's official pollen counter.

Despite the prospect of showers, the rest of the week could be as miserable for the allergic, warned Dvorin, an allergist with the Asthma Center.

This time of year, two of the planet's most capricious forces - love and the weather - conspire to concoct torment for the estimated one million in the region burdened with seasonal allergies.

Pollen is a tree's way of spreading its seed, and on Monday, under ideal conditions, the oaks were giving their all to future generations. Grass pollen, which tends to peak a little later, registered in the "moderate" category.

The daily tree count came in at 1,636 grains, well above the trigger for "extreme."

The daily counts are estimates of the numbers of grains that would pass through a parcel of air about the size of a refrigerator in 24 hours.

Pollen is measured atop the Center City building housing the Asthma Center, which also has several other locations in region.

Dvorin, the region's certified pollen counter for the National Allergy Bureau, starts his workdays by climbing three flights of stairs to the rooftop trap that captures the grains.

The grains are sucked into a coin-slot-size slit inside the trap and become attached to a microscope slide coated with an adhesive. Dvorin places the slide under the microscope lens and calculates the grain total.

What he saw on Monday was brisk traffic for the Asthma Center. Any rain would dampen the annual love fest, but not for long, as conditions should dry out quickly. April, he said in his daily blog, is about to end with "a bad week for allergies."

twood@phillynews.com

610-313-8210@woodt15